Plus he already knows what’s going to happen and did all of those things knowing how they’d turn out.

This is what happens when you begin with whole bunch of not-especially-compatible mythologies cobble them together and then, as the years go by, try to integrate multiple philosophical approaches to ethics without bothering to think through the long-term consequences – you wind up with a Frankenstein’s monster of a belief system, and one that’s so poorly held together it comes apart in a gentle breeze.

Well God, I guess I do owe some thanks for original sin, if you can flex the tiniest modicum of your omnipotence to prove you are real, Well, actually not, since I would still want to squeeze your entire omnipresence through a perpetual motion meatgrinder to bring an end to your egocentric ultra-dickishness. Seriously, you need help.

Makes perfect sense to me: if you’ll believe this, then you’ll willingly tithe 10% of your worth to one of my guys for revealing this profound TRUTH to you. I’m reasonably sure that was the idea at the time the mess was cobbled together, and it’s certainly true today.

Plus he really hates leavening. Two of the ten commandments forbid the use of it:
…
4. The feast of unleavened bread shalt thou keep. Seven days thou shalt eat unleavened bread, as I commanded thee, in the time of the month Abib: for in the month Abib thou camest out from Egypt.
…
8. Thou shalt not offer the blood of my sacrifice with leaven; neither shall the sacrifice of the feast of the passover be left unto the morning.

and let’s not forget…

10. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk.

or the fact that if you’re a Jew, he wants some of the skin from your penis.

jagwired — Ah, I see these are the 10 that were “actually written on stone.” The others were spoken out loud. Of course. Who knew. Thanks…I knew there were several versions but had missed these.

Love the verse before the start of those ten: “And I [God, as I pass] will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts: but my face shall not be seen.” In other words, God showed Moses his ass. Shweet.

Re that piece of skin on the penis: I’ve recently been reading about the castrated and resurrected god Attis, consort of Cybele (the Great Mother), whose birth was celebrated on December 25th. His mendicant priests castrated themselves in imitation of their guy to receive the mysteries. Perhaps circumcision (symbolic castration) seemed like a lower price to pay for the mysteries in that day. As a Roman citizen, the Archigalli of Rome (the head priest of Attis) could not castrate himself so he had to do a symbolic thing.

That’s not accurate. God didn’t create man and woman with original sin. He created them in an earthly garden paradise. They’re allowed to eat from all the trees in the garden of Eden, except the Tree of Knowledge, because as God says, “for on the day you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Then the serpent comes in and tells Eve, “You will not certainly die” and “God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil”.
Eating from the Tree of Knowledge is what caused “original sin”.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_and_Eve

So, the lesson is: knowledge is bad and you must always obey authority.
Make more sense?

@theoreticalgrrrl #14 – “They’re allowed to eat from all the trees in the garden of Eden, except the Tree of Knowledge” which God put at the center of the Garden, all by itself in a little meadow, with neon signs pointing to it and blinking, “Do not eat this luscious, incredibly yummy fruit. Or else!”

Yeah, in that case sign me up for the symbolic castration too. It was also probably a little bit better at propagating their cult than actual castration would have been.

You know, I could actually get behind the fundies erecting their ten commandment monuments at courthouses, if they actually used the written in stone version. It would be funny to see all the “WTF is that?” expressions.

Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaidensays

Yahweh set up Adam and Eve to fail and then punished them (and their descendents) for doing what he knew they’d do. Of all the Christianists the Calvinists have it right, their god is a real asshole who hates his creation.

Well, yeah, he did. Either El Shaddai is omniscient or not, and according to the bible, he is, so he already knew what was going to go down.

They’re allowed to eat from all the trees in the garden of Eden, except the Tree of Knowledge, because as God says, “for on the day you eat of it you shall surely die.”

That wasn’t all there was to it, though. A reading of Genesis reveals that El Shaddai was most nervous about A&E discovering the tree of life and eating off that one, which would have been bad, because they’d be gods, too! Oh no!

3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Now El Shaddai did make the claim that if A&E ate from the tree of knowledge, they would die that same day, but in Genesis 5:5:

And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

PZ:
That is the most awesome, beautifully concise take-down of Christianity I have ever read! LOVE it! Where did you find it?

#3 — Wowbagger — Designated Snarker:
(Love your nym!)
“a Frankenstein’s monster of a belief system, and one that’s so poorly held together it comes apart in a gentle breeze”
VERY well put! Wonderful images!

#4 — Daz: Experiencing a Slight Gravitas Shortfall:
(Love your nym, too!)
Thank you very much for the link to that stunning video. I would love to get a transcript of it. “Theoretical Bullshit” is incredibly brilliant!!

I have never, ever understood how Jesus dying was supposed to be for our sins or how this was supposed to absolve us in any way.. It is such a foreign concept to me and I have never had a good explanation from someone that made a lick of sense to me.

Pierce R. Butler @ #22 — Regardless of the state of Rome whenever and wherever the practice of circumcision first began (neither Rome nor Israel probably existed when that happened), it might have still seemed like a lower price to pay compared to castration for those seeking “knowledge,” salvation, and the promise of resurrection during Roman times, common themes among all the cults floating around the Roman world.

The whole thing feels to me a bit like my first D&D game where the idea I had for the story and setting in the beginning was really different from what I wound up wanting to tell and what the players moved the setting towards so there were a lot of awkward awkward retcons and quietly brushing early setting elements under the rug hoping no one brings them up again because they never existed damn it.

Blood sacrifice. Modern Christians don’t like to admit that the early stages of their religion still practiced sacrifice, so they ignore the fact that such symbolism has made it’s way into their myths. Jesus’ death is quite obviously a human sacrifice to placate the Big Guy. Of course it all becomes even more complicated when the ridiculous and illogical idea of the Trinity gets introduced.

The whole thing feels to me a bit like my first D&D game where the idea I had for the story and setting in the beginning was really different from what I wound up wanting to tell and what the players moved the setting towards so there were a lot of awkward awkward retcons and quietly brushing early setting elements under the rug hoping no one brings them up again because they never existed damn it.

Exactly how I’ve come to see the creation of the christian myth, too :)

Oh, and don’t forget that over the years other gamemasters with only a loose or no adherence to the established narrative took over for periods of time.

“…also, I made sure I was Pretty Much White™ so as not to scare the bigots.”

Now that’s planning!

. . .

Ingdigo Jump @ 28:

The whole thing feels to me a bit like my first D&D game where the idea I had for the story and setting in the beginning was really different from what I wound up wanting to tell and what the players moved the setting towards so there were a lot of awkward awkward retcons and quietly brushing early setting elements under the rug hoping no one brings them up again because they never existed damn it.

It’s worth noting that (at least in the edition I’m most familiar with) the given origin of a fair percentage of the more fantastic beasts in AD&D is explicitly “Magic Man Done It”.

Well, I ain’t no biblical scholar, just remembering stuff I was taught in Sunday School.

We were told that Adam and Eve disobeying God is the reason sin and death exist. I remember being upset as a child by this because all animals were nice and nonviolent before the fall so I coulda had a pet tiger. How cool would a pet tiger be? One that wouldn’t try to maul or eat you?? But A & E had to mess that all up.

I think Caine’s point was that God is supposed to be perfect (omni-this, that ‘n’ everything). If he’s perfect, and he creates beings who sin, then he has to have intended that they should sin, as a perfect being could not, by definition, make mistakes.

Whenever I try to evaluate the dogmas within Christianity, I find myself comparing these crazy rules, rituals, and myths to a poorly designed role playing game system. It’s like D & D created by idiots.

It’s not quite complete because, as far as I can make out, ‘sinning’ is actually breaking the rules that God supposedly set in place, with any punishment for sinning also doled out by God, so He sacrificed Himself to Himself in order to save mankind from the punishment He was threatening for breaking the rules He had set in place.

Since fundies often tout prophecy as proof of Jesus’ pre-ordained messiah-dom, as well as free will as a way to get around God’s having to have perfectly created imperfect beings, it’s worth noting that free will is also incompatible with prophecy, which needs a fixed, unchangeable timeline in order to work.

theoreticalgrrrl:
Those Biblical scholars may not fully understand omniscience then.
If their deity is truly all knowing and all powerful, then he knew everything that was ever going to happen, from the moment he created time until he ends it. So five minutes prior to Genesis 1:1, he already knew A&E were going to eat from the tree. Yet, even knowing that, he creates everything and proceeds to watch Adam and Eve do exactly what he knew they would do, and then punishes them??!!

She probably meant Theologians or xian apologists, not that there is much difference between them.

Biblical scholars usually say the bible is mostly fiction. They disagree on which parts and how much of it is fiction.

The omniscience god put two naive people into a magic garden with the Trees of Knowledge and Life and a smart, walking, talking snake. What did he think was going to happen? An idiot could have figured that one out.

Adam and Eve were set up to fail right at the start. And why were the magic trees in the garden anyway? God, the all powerful Sky Fairy, could have put them on Jupiter or Kpax IV, 50 million light years away.